Small, silly choices like this can have a big impact on your performance in a level. Eventually guards from up above head downstairs to see what the fuss is all about. This causes another ball to ricochet into the corner pocket, which in turn starts an argument between the two players. Not expecting anything to happen, I shoot one of the pool balls. In one of my playthroughs of the same map, I notice two people playing pool in a room below the target. It's about figuring out what weird things you can do in each environment and then stringing them together for the most points possible. The more I play, the more I realize that Hitman: Sniper isn't about logic at all. It's a goofy tactic that doesn't make much logical sense, but it earns me bonus points for hiding the body. To avoid raising an alarm, I shoot the first guard's body a second time, knocking it into a nearby pool. Each guard I take out earns me points.Īt one point, I shoot one guard only to see another coming in the same direction. Guards are patrolling the area around where my target is hanging out. In the mission I test out, I'm looking into a fancy apartment condo. Though you always have a primary target, much of the challenge in Hitman: Sniper will be getting rid of potential witnesses to the crime. It worked perfectly and it felt very natural immediately. And you shoot with a single, heavy tap on a target. You can "tag" enemies with a quick tap, creating a bookmark that allows you to quickly snap between targets. You look around by dragging your finger across the screen. You zoom with the rifle by using a pinching motion on the screen - the same way you'd zoom into and out of a photograph. The controls for this are as simple as they are elegant. You won't be moving at all - the challenge is entirely in taking the best shots you can from that single position.
Each mission in the game places series mainstay Agent 47 on a distant perch from which he can view the level below. In a meeting last week at E3 2014, I was able to go hands-on with the iPad version of Hitman: Sniper. But this time it's far less abstracted, but it still completely works. Like Hitman Go, Sniper reimagines the series' contract killings in a form that fits better on mobile and tablet devices. For the second time in a row, Square Enix Montreal is poised to prove me wrong.Īfter the excellent surprise of Hitman Go earlier this year, that studio is now working on Hitman: Sniper. The Hitman series is known for complex controls, difficult missions and generally the kind of elements that I would think would never work well on iOS devices.